More brouhaha about Flag Flying in Tameside!

Stalybridge Labour Club

A KEEN eyed vexillogist and Northern Voices reader, recently sent us this picture of the rainbow (gay) flag blowing proudly in the wind atop the flag pole of Stalybridge Labour Club. 

The art historian and journalist, Brian Sewell, expressed the view in July 2011 that the lives of many Mancunians were haplessly intertwined with transvestites, transsexuals, teenage lesbians and a horde of homosexuals across the range, because Manchester is known for being one of the most LGBT friendly cities in the UK. The gay art critic, asked:   'Is Manchester now the Sodom of the North?  Where once we had no gaiety at all, we now perhaps, have rather too much.'

In May this year, Cllr Leigh Drennan became the first openly gay Mayor of Tameside.   Two other boroughs in the region, have had an openly gay Mayor - Bury and Manchester.  Among the Mayor's charities this year, will be the 'LGBT Foundation'.   In his year as Mayor, Drennan has said that he hopes he can help to raise awareness of the issues LGBT people face and help people overcome prejudice.

In recent years, the subject of flags and their symbolism, is something that has given rise to much brouhaha and consternation in Tameside.  In March 2018, two Tameside Conservatives, Cllr Doreen Dickenson and Liam Billington, saw red when an hammer and Sickle flag was run up the same Labour club flagpole. The Communist Party flag had been put there, by friends and family,  following the funeral of Rodney (Rod) McCord, a communist and local health campaigner who had died in March 2018.

Their complaint went viral and caused a furore on social media.  The two low-life Tories, shamelessly tried to make political capital out of Mr McCord's death and the flag incident, by linking it to the poisonings of Yulia and Sergei Skripal, allegedly by the Russian state.  It was also alleged that the manager of Stalybridge Labour Club had received death threats and that one of Mr McCord's sons Danny, had been contacted by someone working in the office of Jeremy Corbyn, demanding that the flag be taken down immediately.

In January 2019, a row erupted when the landlord of the Sportsman pub in Hyde, was told by a Greater Manchester Licensing Officer working for Tameside Council, to take down a flag with an iconic image of the famous revolutionary, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara.  The landlord, Geoff Oliver, and his Cuban-born wife Maria, had run the pub and restaurant El Cuba Libre for the last five years.  The flag had been on display on-and-off at the pub for the past five years and wasn't removed from public view.  It has been rumoured that a certain Tameside Tory may have been behind this complaint involving the landlord of the Sportsman pub.

We are not aware that there has been any objections to the rainbow flag. Nowadays, LGBT issues and identity politics have supplanted class politics and have become something required by etiquette and current fashion. There is an obvious and inherent danger with all of this.  The massive attention paid to issues such as Brexit and identity politics, has utterly distracted attention away from the real issues and problems of the world such as, economic inequality, social class, poverty, injustice, capitalist greed and wars, and has divided much of the British left. It has also alienated many people from becoming involved with left-wing politics because of its now farcical nature.

Curiously, the landlord of the Sportsman pub who refused to withdraw the Cuban flag from public view, had his license amended by Tameside's licensing panel when it came up for review. From being allowed to keep serving until 2:00 am in the morning, this was restricted to the witching hour of midnight.  However, we understand from sources, that Stalybridge Labour Club - now privately owned - and which suffers from a lack of customers, has had its licensing hours increased and can now serve until 3:00 in the morning. 

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